3. Weigh me the Fire. 2 Esdras, iv. 5, 7; v. 9, 36: "Weigh me ... the fire, or measure me ... the wind," etc.

4. God ... is the best known, not.... August. de Ord. ii. 16: [Deus] scitur melius nesciendo.

5. Supraentity, t? ?pe???t?? ??, Plotinus.

7. His wrath is free from perturbation. August. de Civ. Dei, ix. 5: Ipse Deus secundum Scripturas irascitur, nec tamen ull passione turbatur. Enchir. ad Laurent. 33: Cum irasci dicitur Deus, non significatur perturbatio, qualis est in animo irascentis hominis.

9. Those Spotless two Lambs. "This is the offering made by fire which ye shall offer unto the Lord: two lambs of the first year without spot, day by day, for a continual burnt-offering." (Numb. xxviii. 3.)17. An Anthem sung in the Chapel of Whitehall. This may be added to Nos. 96-98, and 102, the poems on which Mr. Hazlitt bases his conjecture that Herrick may have held some subordinate post in the Chapel Royal.

37. When once the sin has fully acted been. Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 10: Perfecto demum scelere, magnitudo ejus intellecta est.

38. Upon Time. Were this poem anonymous it would probably be attributed rather to George Herbert than to Herrick.

41. His Litany to the Holy Spirit. We may quote again from Barron Field's account in the Quarterly Review (1810) of his cross-examination of the Dean Prior villagers for Reminiscences of Herrick: "The person, however, who knows more of Herrick than all the rest of the neighbourhood we found to be a poor woman in the 99th year of her age, named Dorothy King. She repeated to us, with great exactness, five of his Noble Numbers, among which was his beautiful 'Litany'. These she had learnt from her mother, who was apprenticed to Herrick's successor at the vicarage. She called them her prayers, which she said she was in the habit of putting up in bed, whenever she could not sleep; and she therefore began the 'Litany' at the second stanza:—

Another of her midnight orisons was the poem beginning:—

The last couplet, it should be noted, is misquoted from No. 56.

54. Spew out all neutralities. From the message to the Church of the Laodiceans, Rev. iii. 16.

59. A Present by a Child. Cp. "A pastoral upon the Birth of Prince Charles" (Hesperides 213), and Note.

63. God's mirth: man's mourning. Perhaps founded on Prov. i. 26: "I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh".

65. My Alma. The name is probably suggested by its meaning "soul". Cp. Prior's Alma.

72. I'll cast a mist and cloud. Cp. Hor. I. Ep. xvi. 62: Noctem peccatis et fraudibus objice nubem.

75. That house is bare. Horace, Ep. I. vi. 45: Exilis domus est, ubi non et multa supersunt.

77. Lighten my candle, etc. The phraseology of the next five lines is almost entirely from the Psalms and the Song of Solomon.

86. Sin leads the way. Hor. Odes, III. ii. 32: Raro antecedentem scelestum Deseruit pede Poena claudo.

88. By Faith we ... walk ..., not by the Spirit. 2 Cor. v. 7: "We walk by faith, not by sight". 'By the Spirit' perhaps means, 'in spiritual bodies'.

96. Sung to the King. See Note on 17.

Composed by M. Henry Lawes. See Hesperides 851, and Note.

102. The Star-Song. This may have been composed partly with reference to the noonday star during the Thanksgiving for Charles II.'s birth. See Hesperides 213, and Note.

We'll choose him King. A reference to the Twelfth Night games. See Hesperides 1035, and Note.

108. Good men afflicted most. Taken almost entirely from Seneca, de Provid. 3, 4: Ignem experitur [Fortuna] in Mucio, paupertatem in Fabricio, ... tormenta in Regulo, venenum in Socrate, mortem in Catone. The allusions may be briefly explained for the unclassical. At the siege of Dyrrachium, Marcus Cassius ScÆva caught 120 darts on his shield; Horatius Cocles is the hero of the bridge (see Macaulay's Lays); C. Mucius ScÆvola held his hand in the fire to illustrate to Porsenna Roman fearlessness; Cato is Cato Uticensis, the philosophic suicide; "high Atilius" will be more easily recognised as the M. Atilius Regulus who defied the Carthaginians; Fabricius Luscinus refused not only the presents of Pyrrhus, but all reward of the State, and lived in poverty on his own farm.

109. A wood of darts. Cp. Virg. Æn. x. 886: Ter secum Troius heros Immanem aerato circumfert tegmine silvam.

112. The Recompense. Herrick is said to have assumed the lay habit on his return to London after his ejection, perhaps as a protection against further persecution. This quatrain may be taken as evidence that he did not throw off his religion with his cassock. Compare also 124.

All I have lost that could be rapt from me. From Ovid, III. Trist. vii. 414: Raptaque sint adimi quae potuere mihi.

123. Thy light that ne'er went out. Prov. xxxi. 18 (of 'the Excellent Woman'): "Her candle goeth not out by night". All set about with lilies. Cp. Cant. Canticorum, vii. 2: Venter tuus sicut acervus tritici, vallatus liliis.

Will show these garments. So Acts ix. 39.

134. God had but one son free from sin. Augustin. Confess. vi.: Deus unicum habet filium sine peccato, nullum sine flagello, quoted in Burton, II. iii. 1.

136. Science in God. Bp. Davenant, on Colossians, 166, ed. 1639; speaking of Omniscience: Proprietates Divinitatis non sunt accidentia, sed ipsa Dei essentia.

145. Tears. Augustin. Enarr. Ps. cxxvii.: Dulciores sunt lacrymae orantium quÀm gaudia theatorum.

146. Manna. Wisdom xvi. 20, 21: "Angels' food ... agreeing to every taste".

147. As Cassiodore doth prove. Reverentia est enim Domini timor cum amore permixtus. Cassiodor. Expos. in Psalt. xxxiv. 30; quoted by Dr. Grosart. My clerical predecessor has also hunted down with much industry the possible sources of most of the other patristic references in Noble Numbers, though I have been able to add a few. We may note that Herrick quotes Cassiodorus (twice), John of Damascus, Boethius, Thomas Aquinas, St. Bernard, St. Augustine (thrice), St. Basil, and St. Ambrose—a goodly list of Fathers, if we had any reason to suppose that the quotations were made at first hand.

148. Mercy ... a Deity. Pausanias, Attic. I. xvii. 1.

153. Mora Sponsi, the stay of the bridegroom. Maldonatus, Comm. in Matth. xxv.: Hieronymus et Hilarius moram sponsi poenitentiae tempus esse dicunt.

157. Montes Scripturarum. See August. Enarr. in Ps. xxxix., and passim.

167. A dereliction. The word is from Ps. xxii. 1: Quare me dereliquisti? "Why hast Thou forsaken me?" Herrick took it from Gregory's Notes and Observations (see infra), p. 5: 'Our Saviour ... in that great case of dereliction'.

174. Martha, Martha. See Luke x. 41, and August. Serm. cii. 3: Repetitio nominis indicium est dilectionis.

177. Paradise. Gregory, p. 75, on "the reverend Say of Zoroaster, Seek Paradise," quotes from the Scholiast Psellus: "The ChaldÆan Paradise (saith he) is a Quire of divine powers incircling the Father".178. The Jews when they built houses. Herrick's rabbinical lore (cp. 180, 181, 193, 207, 224), like his patristic, was probably derived at second hand through some biblical commentary. Much of it certainly comes from the Notes and Observations upon some Passages of Scripture (Oxford, 1646) of John Gregory, chaplain of Christ Church, a prodigy of oriental learning, who died in his 39th year, March 13, 1646. Thus in his Address to the Reader (3rd page from end) Gregory remarks: "The Jews, when they build a house, are bound to leave some part of it unfinished in memory of the destruction of Jerusalem," giving a reference to Leo of Modena, Degli Riti Hebraici, Part I.

180. Observation. The Virgin Mother, etc. Gregory, pp. 24-27, shows that Sitting, the usual posture of mourners, was forbidden by both Roman and Jewish Law "in capital causes". "This was the reason why ... she stood up still in a resolute and almost impossible compliance with the Law.... They sat ... after leave obtained ... to bury the body."

181. Tapers. Cp. Gregory's Notes, p. 111: "The funeral tapers (however thought of by some) are of the same harmless import. Their meaning is to show that the departed souls are not quite put out, but having walked here as the children of the Light are now gone to walk before God in the light of the living."

185. God in the holy tongue. J. G., p. 135: "God is called in the Holy Tongue ... the Place; or that Fulness which filleth All in All".

186, 187, 188, 189, 197. God's Presence, Dwelling, etc. J. G., pp. 135-9: "Shecinah, or God's Dwelling Presence". "God is said to be nearer to this man than to that, more in one place than in another. Thus he is said to depart from some and come to others, to leave this place and to abide in that, not by essential application of Himself, much less by local motion, but by impression of effect." "With just men (saith St. Bernard) God is present, in veritate, in deed, but with the wicked, dissemblingly." "He is called in the Holy Tongue, Jehovah, He that is, or Essence." "He is said to dwell there (saith Maimon) where He putteth the marks ... of His Majesty; and He doth this by His Grace and Holy Spirit."

190. The Virgin Mary. J. G., p. 86: "St. Ephrem upon those words of Jacob, This is the House of God, and this is the Gate of Heaven. This saying (saith he) is to be meant of the Virgin Mary ... truly to be called the House of God, as wherein the Son of God ... inhabited, and as truly the Gate of Heaven, for the Lord of heaven and earth entered thereat; and it shall not be set open the second time, according to that of Ezekiel (xliv. 2): I saw (saith he) a gate in the East; the glorious Lord entered thereat; thenceforth that gate was shut, and is not any more to be opened (Catena Arab. c. 58)."

192. Upon Woman and Mary. The reference is to Christ's appearance to St. Mary Magdalene in the Garden after the Resurrection, John xx. 15, 16.

193. North and South. Comp. Hesper. 429. Observation. J. G., pp. 92, 93: "Whosoever (say the Doctors in Berachoth) shall set his bed N. and S., shall beget male children. Therefore the Jews hold this rite of collocation ... to this day.... They are bound to place their ... house of office in the very same situation ... that the uncomely necessities ... might not fall into the Walk and Ways of God, whose Shecinah or dwelling presence lieth W. and E."

195. Noah the first was, etc. Cp. Gregory, Notes, p. 28.

201. Temporal goods. August., quoted by Burton, II. iii. 3: Dantur quidem bonis, saith Austin, ne quis mala aestimet, malis autem ne quis nimis bona.

203. Speak, did the blood of Abel cry, etc. Cp. Gregory's Notes, pp. 118: "But did the blood of Abel speak? saith Theophylact. Yes, it cried unto God for vengeance, as that of sprinkling for propitiation and mercy."

204. A thing of such a reverend reckoning. Cp. Gregory, 118-9: "The blood of Abel was so holy and reverend a thing, in the sense and reputation of the old world, that the men of that time used to swear by it".

205. A Position in the Hebrew Divinity. From Gregory's Notes, pp. 134, 5: "That old position in the Hebrew Divinity ... that a repenting man is of more esteem in the sight of God than one that never fell away".

206. The Doctors in the Talmud. From Gregory's Notes, l.c.: "The Doctors in the Talmud say, that one day spent here in true Repentance is more worth than eternity itself, or all the days of heaven in the other world".

207. God's Presence. Again from Gregory's Notes, pp. 136 sq.

208. The Resurrection. Gregory's Notes, pp. 128-29, translating from a Greek MS. of MathÆus Blastares in the Bodleian: "The wonder of this is far above that of the resurrection of our bodies; for then the earth giveth up her dead but one for one, but in the case of the corn she giveth up many living ones for one dead one".

243. Confession twofold is. August, in Ps. xxix. Enarr. ii. 19: Confessio gemina est, aut peccati, aut laudis.

254. Gold and frankincense. St. Matt. ii. 11. St. Ambrose. Aurum Regi, thus Deo.

256. The Chewing the Cud. Cp. Lev. xi. 6.

258. As my little pot doth boil, etc. This far-fetched little poem is an instance of Herrick's habit of jotting down his thoughts in verse. In cooking some food for a charitable purpose he seems to have noticed that the boiling pot tossed the meat to and fro, or "waved" it (the priest's work), and that he himself was giving away the meat he lifted off the fire, the "heave-offering," which was the priest's perquisite. This is the confusion or "level-coil" to which he alludes.